29 April 2025
Today, we finally received confirmation:
Vaal Dam and Bloemhof Dam will maintain their current releases.
Inflow is steadily dropping.
Recovery is beginning.
And still… scrolling through Facebook feels like reading the graffiti on a bar bathroom door.
Everyone an expert. Everyone shouting.
“They should have opened earlier!”
“They mismanaged it!”
“Keep the dam 20–30% lower permanently!”
Really?
Here’s the Grade 1 maths you need before hitting “comment”:
Vaaldam current release: Around 1800–2200 m³/s
Bloemhof Dam peak inflow: Over 4200 m³/s
(And yes, this flood surge from the Vaal took 2–3 days to even reach Bloemhof.)
Yet the massive surge into Bloemhof didn’t come from Vaaldam alone.
It came from Bloemhof’s OWN massive catchment area —
223 km² feeding it through dozens of tributaries: the Vet, Vals, Sand rivers… and more.
When these rivers flood, Bloemhof takes the punch — not Vaal Dam.
At 4200 m³/s inflow, the entire Bloemhof Dam could fill in just a few hours.
If you try to “keep it low” permanently, you’ll either:
Blow the dam wall, OR
Starve agriculture and communities during the next drought.
This is not Xbox Flood Simulator 2025.
It’s engineering. It’s survival. It’s called balance.
And about floodline developments?
Nobody is bribing anyone.
You sign a waiver.
You accept the risk.
You build at your own risk.
We live next to the river because we choose to.
Floods come about every 7 years — and we take it like men.
Because for every flood, there are 6+ years of sunsets, crops, campfires, and life richer than anything your Wi-Fi feed could ever show you.
So before you sit dry and warm 500 km away, commenting like a keyboard cowboy…
Ask yourself:
Can you even calculate the basics of inflow, outflow, and common sense?
Or are you still…
reading life off the back of a bar’s toilet door?
We’re rebuilding. We’re learning. We’re living.
